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Russian Journalist Sells Out a Colleague to Slovyansk Terrorists for “Wrong” Portrayal of the Referendum

Russian journalist Dmitry Steshyn, a reporter for “Komsomolskaya Pravda” asked the terrorists in Slovyansk to find and kidnap his German colleague Paul Ronzheimer. Ronzheimer is writing for Bild news magazine. According to Steshyn, Ronzheimer’s capture was necessary, because Ronzheimer wrote about the illegal referendum on the creation of Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) in a “wrong” way. Internet media “20 minutes” learned about this incident from russian journalist Pavel Kanygin, who works for “Novaya Gazeta”.

Pavel Kanygin was captured by separatist militants in Donetsk region. He was able to regain his freedom after another journalist, Stefan Scholl of German Sudwest Presse, ransomed him. Pavel Kanygin wrote on his Facebook page:

“Just now I met my namesake Pol Ronzheimer from Berlin’s Bild, who is hiding from the Slovyansk militants. They declared him a wanted man after he published several pieces about organization of carousel voting, in which groups of voters using absentee ballots wereshuttled between polling stationsto vote repeatedly during this referendum. He is fine so far. He said that Dmitry Steshyn from “Komsomolka” informed the militants about his articles and asked them to catch and detain him”. Kanygin also asked Dmitry Steshyn whether this information was true.

Dmitry Steshyn showed up in the comments shortly and proudly admitted to selling out his colleague to terrorists. The following exchange took place.

“Dmitry Steshyn: Yes, I twitted about this f*** from Bild. I think I did everything right! People paid in blood for this referendum and continue paying now. Too bad, they did not catch him.

Mikhail Romanov: Wow.

Dmitry Steshyn: By the way, only this German d*** wrote about the carousels. There was no need to organize them, because people stood in lines to vote. They did not give in and run away from besieged Slovyansk.

Alexander Romitsyn: Scoundrel.”

After that Kanygin wrote: “To follow up on the previous post. I still can not come to the terms with the fact, that a journalist betrayed his colleague to the militants during the state of emergency.”

Dmitry Steshyn has been previously identified by the media as a person with ties to Russian Neo-Nazis. Together with his colleague Alexander Kotz they are now working with terrorists in occupied areas of Donetsk region and providing media coverage for them. Among others, terrorists captured and still hold at least three journalists. Currently, there is no information about whereabouts of Serhiy Shapoval, a journalist for “VolynPost”, Irma Krat, an activist and journalist from Kyiv and Mykola Ryabchenko, a journalist from Mariupol, who went missing on the 6th of May near the town of Mangush (Donetsk region).